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These photographs are copyrighted and are
the
property
of
Richard L. Watson. They may not be copied or used without
permission.
You may however link to this website from your website or by
email.

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donation to help support the expense of providing these photos of the
Texas Coast, please click on the Paypal button below.

Cedar Bayou 5/17/2012

Cedar Bayou 2/26/2012

Cedar Bayou 10/7/2011

Cedar Bayou 1/6/2011

Note in the next three photos that Vinson
Bayou, channel to the left has little or no connection with Aransas
Bay. The proponents of opening Cedar Bayou and removing the
blockage at the Gulf end of Vinson Bayou expect increased flow through
Vinson Bayou in addition to flow through Cedar Bayou to keep the
channels open. Except at high tides there is no connection
between Vinson Bayou and Aransas Bay and even then it is through very
shallow channels. It is unlikely that Vinson Bayou will help much
in keeping Cedar Bayou open against the hundreds of thousands of cubic
yards of sand moving along the beach. Packery Channel already
needs to have over 200,000 cubic yards of sand dredged from the
entrance even though it has jetties to keep the channel open and sand
out of the entrance. Without jetties the prospect of Cedar Bayou
remaining open for long is low.

Cedar Bayou 1/6/2011

Cedar Bayou 1/6/2011

Cedar Bayou 4/8/2010

The very white areas in the
washover fan appear to be new salt deposits.

Washover fan on north end of San Jose Island. Cedar Bayou is in
foreground. 1/25/2010

Cedar Bayou and the washover fan 1/25/2010

Cedar Bayou 1/25/2010

This is a photo of Cedar
Bayou from the bay side and the huge washover fan on the north end of
San Jose island.

Cedar Bayou 1/10/2010

Cedar Bayou 1/11/2010

9/14/2009

Several days of light rain
and high water levels in Aransas Bay have dissolved the salt deposits
shown on 8/8/2009. In addition, the marshes are flooded and
the
ponds on Matagorda Island are full of water. This first photo
shows the huge washover fan on the north end of San Jose Island.

9/14/2009

8/8/2009

Here are some more photos
of
the salt near Cedar Bayou. I saw no salt further south on San
Jose Island or on Mustang Island. There is a pretty large
salt
pond just inland of Mission Bay in the Mission River delta.
Tony
Amos just informed me that he measured the salinity in one of the few
remaining ponds in Vinson Slough near the Gulf. It was 76ppt.
The following commentary is by Dick Hoese, a marine biologist
who
has been studying this area just about forever.

Not sure about San
Jose. In summer, 1955, what is now Harbor Oaks Harbor in Rockport was a
salt pan. There were small ones on Harbor Island the summer of 1964. Do
not remember any in 1970, but there were some around
Baffin, and Celia stopped things. My neighbor on the
Johnson
Ranch in Lamar found the old salt works on St. Charles Bay and there
has been some archeological work there. Since the flats stop somewhere
around here I have wondered what the northern limit was because the
LaSalle expedition in 1685 reported them. A corrpespondent
sent
me a historical record of settlers drying salt somewhere
around
Matagorda Bay, but have not checked it out. We have only had this
property for a little over a decade, but what seems unusual is the hot
weather from the high pressure during the time of maximum sun azimuth
with little clouds. It feels like Mexico.
Evaporation rates
seem unusual, but have not seen any data.

I started my thesis on Cedar
Bayou in 1956 and do not remember any. There were also some aerials
taken around then, but do not recall seeing any salt. Will
ask
the old timers.

We have had unprecented
wet weather since then, at least in modern Texas history, so while I
hope it rains it will be interesting if we return to an earlier
pattern

8/8/2009 This pond is on the south shore of Mesquite Bay.

8/8/2009 The black
lines across the pond are cattle tracks.

8/1/2009

The drought and the low
lake
levels have caused many of the sloughs in the washover fan at the north
end of San Jose Island to dry out and become salt pans. I
don't
recall ever seeing salt pans like this on San Jose Island, or at any
location north of Laguna Madre. In the 1800s, this would have
been a bonanza for an entrepeneur.